The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #88117   Message #1650392
Posted By: Jerry Rasmussen
17-Jan-06 - 04:04 PM
Thread Name: BS: My Prejudices
Subject: RE: BS: My Prejudices
There's a difference between disliking individuals wot do stuff that is dislikeable and prejudice.

The trick with prejudice is not to take a justified dislike for an individual, and then project it on to a group of people, and then stick a label on the group. That's what prejudice is. The anger toward an individual may be well justified. Projecting that anger toward a whole group of people isn't. Interetingly, the reverse process doesn't usually happen. People can say "Blacks are lazy because they have had a bad experience with a few blacks who are.
(And somehow don't make a comparable generality about lazy people they know who are white.) In their eyes, Blacks are lazy. If you point out examples of hard-working, responsible blacks, a prejudiced person will say, "Yeah, alright, THEY'RE not lazy, but they're the exception that proves the rule."

Sometimes you can't win for losing.

But then, we segue into commenting on the prejudice of others.
Or more accurately, I am commenting on the prejudice of others. It is so easy.

There's a difference too between things that bug us and prejudice. Prejudice is a much more serious problem. Things that "bug" us just irritate us. Things that we are prejudiced about diminish us.

Jerry